(November 18, 2015 at 4:05 pm)drfuzzy Wrote: This is just a musing about church lyrics. It got a little long, so I'll hide big chunks of this. Let me know what you think if you feel so inclined!
A LOT of Xtian hymns border on the sexual. Some of this is due to the fact that in the late 1800's, a lot of hymn-writers were female. As Valerie Cunningham pointed out in one of her articles, "The classic, canonical English hymn book is packed with the songs of women, especially Victorian ones." June Haddon Hobbs agrees, in her book "I Sing for I Cannot Be Silent" pointing out that the hymn "In the Garden" is so full of Victorian erotic imagery that some Victorian audiences found it pornographic.
I Come to the Garden -- C. Austin Miles
And he walks with me and he talks with me
And he tells me I am his own
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known
Of course, only the language has changed, the problem still exists. Matt Kennedy wrote an article in 2011 about being embarrassed over "jesus-is-my-boyfriend" praise songs. He starts off with one example:
Your Love is Extravagant -- Casting Crowns / Darrell Evans
Your love is extravagant
Your friendship, it is intimate
I feel like moving to the rhythm of Your grace
Your fragrance is intoxicating in our secret place
Your love is extravagant
His discomfort with the "almost obligatory display of enraptured bliss", the transported singing of the hymns, drew a varied bag of comments. One commenter, Sarah, replied that "It is no coincidence that sometimes our relationship with Christ sometimes “feels” a bit romantic." Other commenters agreed, saying that the church is supposed to be the Bride of Christ.
I have uncomfortably witnessed the phenomenon many times. For a lot of xtian females, Jesus isn't just a saving and protecting god-figure. As Cunningham said: "The rhetoric is of totality: total surrender, a complete yielding of a female all to the mastering Saviour, the divine surrogate lover." Jesus isn't JUST an imaginary friend to these folks.
Just as I am, without one plea -- Charlotte Elliott
Just as I am, thy love unknown
hath broken every barrier down;
now, to be thine, yea thine alone,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
I'll just post a few hymns here. Be well, AF denisons!
Only the perverted mind could find sexual intentions in any of those songs.
GC
God loves those who believe and those who do not and the same goes for me, you have no choice in this matter. That puts the matter of total free will to rest.
